ABSTRACT
Why all the stress on ‘creativity’ at this particular period? It seems to me this groundswell has arisen as a symptom of revolt against the threatening mechanization of man and society, which also shows signs of engulfing the schools. The movement is particularly strong in America, partly because mechanization there has gone farther than in Britain, and partly because the crusade for ‘creativity’ has somehow got mixed up with a protest against excessive social emphasis in the schools and has become a plea to the American High School to produce independent and intelligent thinkers rather than merely conformist good mixers. (Getzels and Jackson see creativity almost as an antidote to too much ‘togetherness’.) The emphasis on creativity also coincides with a need, generally felt in Britain as elsewhere, for the schools to emerge from formalism, traditional routine and drill and the straitjacket of conventional subject divisions. ‘Innovation’ is the rallying cry of this new movement.
